Arjun Khemani

Our entire lives are basically a series of habits. We do things habitually for the bulk of our time on this planet. But habits can turn into our worst enemies sometimes, and worst enemies do everything they can to forbid us to live our best.

In order to prosper one needs to avoid accumulating enemies, in the habitual sense.

We could outweigh the evil by increasing the good.

To increase the good, it is indeed important to have something even more important and good of. And that’s systems.

Everyone (and everything) has a system. Try to imagine yourself as a car engine. If you have the best quality of cast-iron parts there are in the market, the most pure oil of optimized viscosity running through your galleries, a very efficient cooling and exhaust system, spark-plugs suited specially for your design which are astonishingly effective; among a few other goodies … Basically if you—the car engine—have all your systems running at the most efficient manner there is for any car engine to run at … well then you’re going to be an amazing car engine, possibly the best car engine in the world!

This matters precisely because we work a little like car engines. We too have our equivalent of cooling systems, fuel and ignition systems and the electrical and braking systems of a general car. Just like a great car needs to have a brilliant engine; and just like a brilliant engine needs to have an amazingly efficient functioning method of all its various systems; we, as triumphant individuals need to have our own top-notch systems.

Let me explain a bit further, now using real humans in the frame.

A system is a procedure. A method or a way of doing certain things. The right systems bring forth the right results, and the wrong ones really mess it all up. Systems are a process which we can repeat, tune accordingly to our own difficulty, and keep reviewing and improving upon. It’s a process of something we do. We can have many systems. In fact, we do have many systems, a different one for all our varied priorities.

Habits build upon systems.

So to build a “good” habit, you require a “good” system. Even bad habits can build upon “good” and strong systems, mostly unknowingly. Since a system is just a system. It does its job no matter what the outcome may be.

There’s yet a big difference between habits and systems.
A habit could be reading books. But a system for that would possibly be reading 25 pages of a non-fiction book every night before bed.
Another habit could be getting some exercise. The system for that could be to go to the gym for 45 minutes, 3 days a week.

So systems are a path to lead us to do the habit. They are the implementing kit of our habits. That’s why it’s so much more easier to create habits within the confines of a regular, definite system.

Creating systems to stand by our desired good habits are by far one of the best ways to live better.